Thursday, April 25, 2013

Verizon's Tilt-Shift-Focus on Espionage

Ninety-six percent of cyber espionage cases targeting intellectual property and business trade secrets were attributed to “threat actors in China,” while the remaining four percent were unknown, according to the “2013 Data Breach Investigations Report," which is issued by Verizon, a large U.S. telecom firm...

“Verizon doesn't explain how they determine that an event is state-sponsored, nor how they distinguish between legitimate attacks originating from China and those which use compromised servers in Chinese IP space,” said Jeffrey Carr, CEO of Taia Group, a cyber-security firm. “Hence, any conclusion that they try to draw about the government of China has to be taken with a great degree of skepticism.”
Carr said he believes a lot of the espionage originating in China could “actually be the work of non-state actors working in the Chinese IP space.” (more) 


Keep in mind this report is from a telecommunications company. It is a tilt-shift-focus photo. The center of attention is their product – data-motion. Non-IT methods of espionage are out of focus. 

The result is a distorted reality field with micro-bickering over "who" is to blame, instead of what can be done about it.

Wake up. Pockets are being picked. "Who" doesn't matter. Keeping your intellectual wallet safe matters. 

Successful counterespionage requires a clear, sharp, holistic vision. Beware the tilt-shift folks who focus on IT alone. They miss all the end runs. Budget for a 360ยบ lens. ~Kevin